TY - JOUR AU - Lawrence, Macy AU - Lawrence, Ty E PY - 2021/12/28 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Elimination of Coliform Bacteria in Water via Filtration, Lime juice, and Sunlight JF - Texas Journal of Agriculture and Natural Resources JA - TXJANR VL - 34 IS - SE - Research Articles DO - UR - https://txjanr.agintexas.org/index.php/txjanr/article/view/403 SP - 48-54 AB - <p><strong>This experiment evaluated methods to sanitize water at home and with minimal expense.&nbsp; Water samples were collected from a local park pond; initial coliform contamination of the raw source water equaled 1.43 log CFU/ml.&nbsp; Raw water was sanitized via sand-filtration, lime juice, and sunlight in a completely randomized design using a 2 x 3 x 3 factorial treatment structure.&nbsp; One-half of the samples were filtered through a homemade sand filter, whereas the balance were unfiltered.&nbsp; Filtered and unfiltered samples were mixed with lime juice, at 0, 1, or 10% concentrations, and then exposed to 2, 4, or 8 hours of direct sunlight.&nbsp; Sand-filtration did not reduce coliform counts (<em>P</em> = 0.92).&nbsp; A lime juice x sunlight interaction (<em>P</em> &lt; 0.01) demonstrated poor water sanitation at the intermediate lime juice concentration (1%) and 2 hours of sunlight but notably improved levels of sanitation at lesser or greater lime juice concentrations and longer duration of sunlight.&nbsp; Raw water samples mixed with 10% lime juice or exposed to 8 hours of sunlight were unable to grow colonies of coliform bacteria.&nbsp; This experiment demonstrates the ability to sanitize surface water using readily available fruit acid and ultraviolet light from the sun.</strong></p> ER -